1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fields of microbiology and medicine. More particularly, the present invention relates to a bacterial protein designated as MAM and methods and compositions for exploiting its use in treating pathogenic bacterial infections.
2. Description of Related Art
Bacterial pathogens possess a large repertoire of virulence factors that target and manipulate the host cellular machinery to enable infection. Delivery of effector proteins to the host cytosol by type III, type IV and type VI secretion systems as well as delivery of extracellular toxins is a common strategy used by bacterial pathogens to abrogate the host immune response and alter cellular pathways to the pathogen's advantage (Alouf, 2000; Galan, 2009). Since the secretion of effector and toxin proteins is contact-dependent, the bacteria need to establish tight binding to the host to successfully start an infection. If one could establish the existence of a common virulence factor across species that enables a wide range of pathogen to establish strong initial host binding, which is required for the activation and secretion of other virulence factors, it would be possible to design a broadly effective therapeutic strategy that focuses on inhibition of this factor.